Finally, A Town Loony

Oops - I only today realized that I hadn't finished up my Lake Como series. We had one final day on the lake, which we'd thought we'd spend going to the town of Verona. Then we realized it was almost two hours away, so instead, we slept in. Then, feeling like we needed to actually make use of one last day but with me hobbling from our hike the day before, we elected to visit the lake town of Aregno - mainly because the ferry ride was almost an hour. I was quite excited to be doing something that involved sitting down for an entire hour. The appeal in Aregno was a cable car up, up, up to the hill top town of Pigra. After getting off the ferry and rushing to the cable car (because it only runs on the half hour), we found that it was closed until 2pm, a fact I later remembered reading and actually writing down on my "Things to Do on Lake Como" list. I blame the pain in my calves for pushing out all other rational thought. A nice, little lunch in Aregno's small piazza occupied our time before we headed back to the terrifying cable car. We lurched our way up the first few yards, making all of us in the cable car rethink the decision to be in it.

But after a little ride with phenomenal views, we reached Pigra. Absolutely nothing going on there. Nothing at all. With one major exception. This guy kept rollerblading around town blowing some sort of toy horn contraption. We were delighted to dub him the Town Loony. I still long for one of the best TV shows ever, "Gilmore Girls," so we often have names for people who seem to be right out of Stars Hollow. Pigra's Town Loony is one such character. We're pretty sure we found his house as well, but sadly, I did not get a good photo. It was decorated with all kinds of animal skulls and signs about dinosaurs...and I almost forgot about the odd, ghost figure hung up by a noose.

Pigra itself seemed to have lots of artsy type residents as many of the yards had sculptures and such hanging about. Other than that, there was a nice trail (that I think may have actually been a cowpath) that wandered thru some woods on top of the mountain and opened up to one, nice viewpoint. But really, the best activity in Pigra is sitting on this bench overlooking the lake vista while listening to the off-key horn of Town Loony. And that completed our wonderful, relaxing getaway on Lake Como, surely one of the most beautiful spots in Italy.

Varenna Morning, Star Wars Afternoon

Colorful, beautiful, Varenna

Our favorite day on Lake Como, in part due to a full day of blue skies, we spent mostly in the village of Varenna. Lovely, lovely Varenna. We both agreed that this charming village was our favorite. Where Bellagio makes no apologies for catering to tourists and Menaggio seems to do so under duress, Varenna fills the gap in between perfectly with a charming mix of small town, local life along with some lovely cafes and a small number of artsy shops. Add to this a short, pretty boardwalk that curves the coastline from the ferry landing around a small point to a movie set worthy, colorful collage of buildings, plus a couple of villas open to the public, a large piazza, and some hikes in the hills and you've got a near perfect town. We started with a stroll along the waterfront, taking in the lake on a brilliant day and stopping every few feet for yet another photo, then we made our way along narrow, neighborhood alleys and up into the pretty piazza. There, we found a map of town which showed a loop road going up to a castle in the hamlet of Vezio. Somewhere, either the map or a road sign, we noticed the castle was only a 15 minute walk. Taking into consideration the disaster of our Greece hike added to my recent tendency to become out of breath by doing something as strenuous as walking to the bathroom, we decided that 30 minutes was a reasonable assumption for us.

View from Villa Monastero

Fifteen minutes later, we had just barely turned off the flat road and onto the pedestrian path sloping up. The path headed up with slight curves, cutting off most of the switchbacks that the smart people (with cars) use. We headed up, up, up. And then up some more. Until our path ended at the road, and we had no idea which way to go. Thankfully, we found a nice lady working in her yard to point us toward the castello, and at our next crossroads, ran into yet another friendly local out for a stroll. And so we headed up some more. Until we reached a sign pointing us off the road we'd joined and onto yet another pedestrian path that headed down. This path was quite easy and led us past a pretty waterfall where we relaxed by practicing our photography skills in attempting to take photos where the water looks all soft and cloud-like and glowy. After this little rest, it was up again, but this time, helpful signs told us just how close we were, and we quickly landed in the tiny, hilltop village of Vezio.

Due to exhaustion, I had no desire to wander the few streets of Vezio, so instead, we headed straight for the castle, and for some reason, after almost two hours of hiking, didn't go in. It was a classic example of the phrase "It's the journey, not the destination." From the castle, which probably had stunning views of the entire lake, but I don't really know, there were two paths back down to Varenna. One was clearly marked Varenna and ferries with an arrow. The other looked a little sketchier, said it went in the "direction" of Varenna, but also was supposed to go by a waterfall. We picked that one. I regretted it at the no turning back point, which was after about 10 minutes of carefully picking my way down a little maintained, narrow path of rocks with a steep drop off the side. Thankfully, this ended soon, and we found ourselves in a bucolic scene of olive groves, sloping path, and expansive lake views. Back in Varenna, we settled into a lakefront Creperie for a delicious lunch and even more delicious, dessert crepes. My reward for a much more challenging hike than we'd planned.

Cafe in Paradise

With the afternoon passing a little too quickly, we found ourselves in a bit of a time crunch trying to grab a ferry down to the town of Lenno, where we hoped to visit the Villa Barbianello. Anyone recognize the villa? It was used for scenes in both Star Wars: Episode 2 Attack of the Clones and Casino Royale. I'd read that the walk to the villa is along a nice, 1 km path, but the best approach is via water taxi. As we arrived in Lenno, we realized that we had very little time to actually reach the villa, tour it, then make our way back to the ferry for the last ferry out of town. We made it to the every 30 minute, water taxi with about one minute to spare and found ourselves on a nice boat ride around the small peninsula, giving us a stunning view of the Villa. As we arrived, we found the last tour of the day had already started and while the lady selling entrance tickets offered to call to see if we could run up and join it, we waved her off. Unfortunately. I had not read about the interior of the villa until we were strolling the small garden area and reading the brochure we got at the entrance. The interior sounded fascinating, full of items collected by the previous owner in his very adventurous life of travel. But since I could barely walk at this point due to sore calves from our morning hike, I couldn't work up too much regret. We walked around the gardens, which were nothing fancy after seeing Villa Carlotta the day before, and headed back to the ferry to return to Bellagio and enjoy a fabulous dinner before turning in early after our active day.

Towns and Villas

Our first day on Lake Como dawned grey and misty, but by the time we caught our ferry over to Menaggio, blue skies were appearing! Menaggio was a sleepy town with a lovely, waterfront walk, complete with restaurant filled piazza. My favorite meal of our entire trip was here with one of the most delicious pastas I've ever eaten, followed up with a stop at a different restaurant for warm chocolate cake and gelato. With some time to kill before our ferry out of town, we decided to take a walk up past the town. Menaggio seems to have the most complete description of hill walks, with a fancy little map and board posted right at the ferry landing. We went up narrow alleys and stairs, saw some beautiful views looking down the lake, then headed back down to the ferry landing to get over to Villa Carlotta.

Lake Como is lined with elegant villas and gardens, some public, most private. Villa Carlotta has some of the most beautiful gardens and has somehow managed to swing their very own ferry landing, despite their being one to the north in Cadenabbia and to the south in Tremezzo, both only a short walk away. (We were quite thankful for the immediate access though when our blue skies turned to heavy downpour just at the end of our visit). The villa itself was built in 1745, but is named and known for it's owner 100 years later, Duchess Carlotta (Charlotte), who was given the villa as a wedding present from her mother. Those were the good ole days. The gardens have become famous for it's profusion of rhododendron (not blooming during our visit) and azaleas (blooming strong), and pathways wind and dip between stands of flowering trees and shrubs to viewpoints of the lake. I was especially enchanted with the names found in the garden, such as the Rhododendron Forest, the Theatre of Greenery, and Fern Valley. Thankfully, the rain held off until we were past Fern Valley and nearing the exit. With rain showing no sign of letting up, we headed back to Bellagio for a little riposo (rest) before dinner and called it an early night.

Heaven on Earth

"The precise location of heaven on earth has never been established, but it may very well be right here."

Herb Caen, writing about Lake Como

I could not agree more. We just spent a long weekend in that beautiful place, and I could not believe just how quickly we relaxed. Our trip up there was more challenging than expected. While not far from the Milan airport in distance, the travel is a literal journey of planes, trains, and automobiles. Our flight landed in Milan just before 6pm. After a 25 minute wait for the "every 7 minute" shuttle bus to Terminal 1, we then caught an express train to the town of Saronno. There, we switched to another train to the town of Como. We reached the lake, but not our final destination of Bellagio, a lake town about halfway up. Our original plan involved a ferry from Como to the town of Bellagio, but upon arrival in Como, we discovered we'd missed the last ferry by about 20 minutes. We headed back to the bus station to see if there were any buses, and found the bus ticket counter closed. Actually, as we walked up to the counter, the ticket man closed his shades. We were that close to success. Upon asking a couple of locals, we were informed that we'd have to take a taxi (for the more than an hour drive!). But the bus schedule listed one final bus going to Bellagio. Problem was that we had no tickets. A quirk of Italy is that one cannot buy tickets on the transportation one is taking. Tickets are sold at transportation offices or sometimes at newsstands and tabacco shops. Don't get me started on the logic of having transportation running at times when all places to buy tickets for said transportation are closed. We threw ourselves on the mercy of the bus driver, and he waved us aboard. The night became dark and stormy as we wove our way along a lakeside drive that must surely be stunning by daylight. After about 40 minutes, with only one other passenger left on board, the driver pulled up to the side of the road in a dark town, flipped on all the bus lights, and told us to go into the bar to buy tickets. We were clearly not the first tourists to have messed up the ticketing process.

Bellagio, like most of the other lake towns, is built on a rather steep hill. I'd picked our hotel with one thought in mind: proximity to the ferry landing. We wanted to visit the other lake towns on the convenient (usually) ferry system, and I did not want to be huffing and puffing my way up and down cobblestone pathways several times a day just for hotel stops. Our hotel room itself left a great deal to be desired, but we were less than a five minute walk to the passenger ferry and had an incredible view of the lake. Our hotel was like much of Italy, full of faded grandeur and glory. But in super chic Bellagio, even faded glory comes with a hefty price tag. In the middle of the lake is a trio of the most visited (touristed) towns, Bellagio, Varenna, and Menaggio. Bellagio is probably the most touristy, teeming with jewelry and expensive clothing shops. The town also offers the widest variety of restaurants and seems to have the most going on it, while still remaining a small town. We spent our first morning walking around Bellagio, visiting those jewelry shops and scoring a handmade silver spoon made out of an antique hairpin coming from the traditional headdresses of Bellagio costumes. When my niece was born, my sister's mother-in-law gave her a gift of a silver spoon with a little note saying, "Every child should be born with a silver spoon." The idea has captivated me ever since because every child should be born with love and opportunity surrounding him or her, and I love this idea manifested into an actual silver spoon...so we jumped at the chance of giving our Baby Girl a silver spoon with a story behind it.

We also had to spend the morning taking care of a little chore, and an embarrassing one at that. First, I would like to point out that while I am not some huge, adventure traveler, I've been traveling pretty regularly for about 20 years now. I haven't seen and done it all, and every trip still gets me excited, but traveling is no longer a novelty. I know what clothes to bring, what shoes are going to work for me, and I keep a stocked toiletry kit on hand. Over the years, I might have forgotten a sweater, a rain jacket, or a charging cord, but never something really important...until now. As I unpacked, I found, to my horror, that I'd not packed a single pair of underwear for this four night trip. Not a one. In small town Italy, one may not just run to the corner WalMart or even something like a CVS, so I had an important goal for our first morning. Thankfully, we quickly lucked onto a small shop of intimates - these stores are stocked with boxes behind a counter. You don't just flip through some racks of clothes and pick out what you need; instead, you ask for your desired item, color, style, and size. I looked up on google translate the word for "panty," and strode confidently into the store to ask the little old lady behind the counter for such a thing. Her little old husband came shuffling over and, after asking if I wanted naturale or nero (black), pulled out a pair of pantyhose. I said no, no, no and most likely began rolling my eyes around the store wildly before noticing a box behind the counter with a picture of underwear on it. I gave up on speaking and just began pointing. The little old lady asked my measurement while the little old man began pulling pair after pair out of boxes in a variety of natural, black, and white colors. In desperation, I grabbed the closest pair and tried to do a quick, yet discreet, hold up to the body measurement and just ended up buying those. They worked out, and thankfully, we found another store later in the day where I could supplement my initial purchase with a little less embarrassment. And for anyone else who finds themselves in the same predicament in Italy, what you want to buy are "slip." When the lady in the second store asked me if I wanted "slip" (pronounced "sleep"), I thought she was speaking English to me and asking if I wanted pajamas.

You should also know that Bellagio, the hotel of the same name in Las Vegas, does not resemble the town in the slightest. However, if you've seen the Chihuly glass ceiling sculpture in the hotel, and compare it to the actual gardens that grace the villas lining the lakefront, then the sculpture name, Fiori di Como - Flowers of Como, is absolutely perfect. That sculpture is a breathtaking translation of the actual beauty found on Lake Como, which we finally began to explore with sunny skies appearing and a successful hunt for undergarments behind us.